


Vices

by chronicAngel



Series: Leaves in the Summer [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alcohol, Birthday, Drinking, F/M, Implied/Referenced Sex, POV Third Person, The Legendary Sannin, Three Shinobi Prohibitions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 17:37:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13346169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: There are three prohibitions. Only three.





	Vices

There are three prohibitions. Only three.

Jiraiya, of course, is a bumbling idiot, and regularly gets caught up in the feminine wiles of the world of women. One can bet that when it comes to Jiraiya, a pretty face will get you just about anywhere, and a sufficient chest will get you anywhere else. Tsunade, who has always been, to her credit, much _less_ of a bumbling idiot than Jiraiya, has held the title of The Legendary Sucker since she was only a child, frequently gambling and just as frequently losing. Often, a bet against Tsunade is considered a free win.

Orochimaru considers himself above such things.

He's spent most of his life now under the assumption that he would avoid women and men alike through his twenties and thirties in favor of advancing his technique as a shinobi, and once he has made his permanent mark on the world, he would simply settle for marrying Tsunade, who takes every opportunity to remind him that no one else will put up with "a freak like him" for the rest of their "miserable lives." As for gambling, he's never understood the appeal of the risk-reward scenarios his teammate is so often throwing herself into when it's very simple to crack both the games that she finds herself playing and the psychology of the people she finds herself playing with. He doesn't bet often, and he has yet to have lost one.

He assumes that, like any shinobi with a strong enough will, he is simply immune to these so-called temptations. That is, until Jiraiya approaches him in the Konoha Library on a November morning, on which he happens to be turning twenty, and declares, "We're going to go drinking."

After being sufficiently shushed by everyone else in the library, the silver-haired pervert gets a skeptical look from Orochimaru. "I have neither the time nor the interest to play with you today, Jiraiya," he says, as though trying to negotiate with a child or a begging pet.

"I'm not a monkey, Orochimaru," he complains, glaring around the room and poking his fingers together. "I hate to play this card, pal, but it's my birthday."

"You don't sound like you hate to play that card at all." He flips the page of his book without looking up, but he can feel Jiraiya's scowl against the side of his face as he continues to ignore him.

Somehow, he lets the oaf guilt him. He imagines Tsunade is in a similar boat, as she looks absolutely astonished when the three of them find themselves that evening at what can hardly be described as a restaurant, so much as a sake establishment that happens to serve mediocre food. He and Tsunade arrive at the same time, meeting Jiraiya and the two nameless women hanging off of his arms at the entrance.

Whoever they are, they disappear quickly, and judging by their apparent age, Orochimaru wonders if their flirting with Jiraiya wasn't just a ploy to get into the place when they aren't actually old enough to be consuming alcohol. He supposes he doesn't actually care that much. He doesn't order an alcoholic beverage until two hours into the outing, at which point Jiraiya, whose cheeks are suspiciously pink, hooks his arm around his shoulders and slurs, "Oroshimaru, you're lookin' suspiciously dry."

Waving Jiraiya off in annoyance, he looks over the man and crinkles his nose in decided disgust. Curling his lip, he offers, "I'll get a drink if it means you won't touch me again." Rather than scoffing and acting offended like a more sober version of Jiraiya might, he grins and snaps at a nearby waiter.

He isn't sure what, exactly, his friend orders for him, but he is sure of two things: 1. It is definitely not sake, and 2. When Jiraiya commented on Tsuande "filling out" a month ago, he wasn't joking. Orochimaru has never been particularly taken with girls, finding dating a frivolous pastime that was beneath him when one could just get to the point and finding most of the girls in their village overly stupid, often on purpose. He has never thought stupidity was a flattering trait on anyone. Tsunade, on the other hand, is someone he has known since they were assigned to the same genin squad when they were six, and she is straightforward and intelligent and has a huge chest.

"I'm not very fond of bugs," he says to her as though this is some sort of line while ordering his second drink.

She snorts into her own glass. "What?" Her cheeks have the same flush that Jiraiya's do, but it's distinctly different at the same time. Where Jiraiya just looks like an infatuated schoolboy obsessed with peeping on girls who has caught a glimpse of a classmate's underwear, the reddish tinge to her cheeks almost seems elegant, in a makes-your-heart-speed-up-for-no-reason, highlights-just-how-amber-her-eyes-are kind of way. He repeats himself, and she laughs this time, which makes his chest tighten in a way that he finds rather shocking as he's felt distinctly _loose_ since his first few sips of amber liquid. "Nooo, I think that bugs are cute," she says. She thinks for a moment after that, then adds, "Aburame Batta isn't so bad, either."

"Aburame Batta? You could do much better than Aburame Batta." He curls his lip in disapproval at the thought of him.

"Like who?"

He stutters on a 'Me,' deciding that he is not smooth. He can't talk his way into girls' bedrooms like Jiraiya can, and he thinks that he doesn't want to be that, anyway. He wonders what, exactly, she could see in the bug boy. He supposes the Aburame clan is one of the four noble clans of Konoha... "Are you drunk?" She finally snorts again, putting her glass down on the bar.

He scoffs at the insinuation. "I've only had one drink," he defends, and his voice reminds him of Jiraiya when he's been called out on his 'research'.

"You totally are," she says, and promptly chugs the rest of her drink, placing the empty glass on the waiter's tray as he brings by Orochimaru's next glass of amber liquid. Jiraiya is nowhere to be seen, presumably having left with one of his many birthday broads, but the bar around them is far from empty with new people flowing in and out of it like chakra. As he is about to open his mouth to say something, she smiles wickedly at him, and any words he had catch in his throat. He has decided that he is a very inarticulate drunk, and he's not sure if he likes it yet. "This could be fun."

The next hour is total misery for him, but Tsunade seems entertained. He burns the image of her smile at the moment that she stops laughing and stares down into her drink while she tries to think of another story to pry out of him into his brain as though he's filing it away for further study. There comes a point in the night where he picks up on the fact that she needs to leave, somewhere between her admitting that she's always been jealous of his hair and her beating a guy who hit on her into a bloody pulp on the floor for "interrupting their conversation." On a normal night, he might simply bid her farewell and tell her that she's strong enough to walk home by herself when she tries to insist that it would be rude of him to just leave her there, but he abandoned that person four empty glasses ago.

She's snickering as they walk to her apartment, burying her laughs in her hands ineffectually. They've switched from her prying stories out of him that he's just drunk enough to admit to a back-and-forth exchange of information as though they haven't known each other for almost a decade and a half. Surprisingly, a lot of it is new to him, anyway. He learns that her favorite color is purple, but a light purple like irises as opposed to a darker purple like pansies, and that what she likes about Aburame Batta is that he's not afraid to be the 'weird' guy for being smart, and then she smiles at him in a way that makes him feel distinctly childish. She tells him her blood type, which he already knows, because it is the same as his and Jiraiya's.

They get to her apartment, and rather than parting ways like they had originally intended, she invites him inside and they crack a bottle of sake that she says sensei got for her for her birthday months ago that she didn't want to get into alone "because only alcoholics drink by themselves!" They continue to play their game, and he tells her that his favorite color is simply white, keeping the memory of the white snake at his parents' graves to himself, and that he doesn't particularly like anyone, to which she incredulously responds that he _has_ to.

"I do not," he scoffs.

She laughs. "Well what about whoever your first time was with?"

He stops, watching her curiously for a moment in response to that, and she seems to notice because her cheeks flush deeper under his scrutiny. "You forgot," he says, hardly aware that he's saying it.

After a second, she tears her eyes away from his, staring into her sake cup. It's an old sort of set, not particularly traditional, but the sort you can look at and tell she got from her grandfather. Softly, she says, "Of course I didn't."

Everything has slowed to an eerie stop, and she leans toward him slowly. He notes the way her breathing has stopped, the way her last exhale before her lips make contact with his is warm, and when he catches a whiff of it, it smells strongly of sake and not so much of whatever she was drinking at the "restaurant". He melts into it, but his actions are still as calculated as ever.

* * *

He wakes up the next morning, his head suspiciously clear of the headache that she complains of, and then she reaches over the side of the bed for her shirt like it's nothing.

"Happy birthday to Jiraiya," she mumbles into his shoulder, once she's dressed herself but rolled over as if to go back to sleep. He chooses to say nothing.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is it, actually my favorite headcanon in all of the Naruto universe.
> 
> (Also it feels kind of out of character so I'll probably re-write it. Whether that's tomorrow or on Jiraiya's actually birthday... Well, we'll see!)


End file.
